David C. Page

David Page is a mammalian geneticist who studies germ cell and reproductive tract development.

In 1982, Page began using recombinant DNA techniques to investigate cases of human “sex reversal” due to anomalies of the X and Y chromosomes. His findings suggested that a small number of genes determine the sex of an embryo, and that a similarly small number of genes play pivotal roles in a chromosome disorder known as Turner syndrome. In 1992, he and his colleagues were the first to clone an entire human chromosome (the Y), and he has since participated in efforts to map the whole of the human genome. Page has also begun to search for mutations that disrupt the development of germ cells, the precursors of eggs and sperm, and thereby cause human infertility.

Page conducts research at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, where he chairs the Task Force on Genetics and Public Policy, which he founded in 1992. He is also a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Page received a B.A. (1978) from Swarthmore College, and an M.D. (1984) from the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Health Sciences and Technology Program.